Charlie Sharp - Cardigan, Wales

Camera Fifteen

"Today was the day I went seeking strangers with the disposable camera I had been sent for the When you're a stranger photography project. I had to go to Cardigan to get my hair cut and I knew I would have more chance of finding a stranger there than in my own town.


With 20 minutes to spare before my appointment I wandered into a rambling shop called The Trading Post which sells a variety of second-hand and exotic items on two floors. As I entered I spotted two mature men of striking appearance chatting in a sort of nook. One was the shop keeper and the other, who seemed to be a friend and regular visitor, was sitting on a leather settee between two guitars. Could I...? would they...?

In a slight panic I headed upstairs to the secondhand book section, found a book and took it downstairs to purchase. I addressed them: "Could you help me with a photography project? I'm looking for a stranger with an interesting face." Immediately each pointed a finger at the other. "I'll go with the hat" I said. I explained my brief.

"What would you like to know?" he asked.

"Well, your name, and could you say something about yourself?"

"Charlie Sharp" he said, "I'm a man of letters" - thrusting towards me an envelope with his name and address written on it.

We had some further conversation and it appeared that although Charlie was a stranger to me he is evidently a well-known local character, a poet, bard and busker (on the mandolin). He offered to read me a poem, about grief. It was a sequence of striking images of what grief feels like, it being impossible to describe in ordinary language.

I took his picture with the disposable, and another which I've put here. I forgot to give the card! Then it was time for me to keep my appointment and I found I had no change for the book (Volume 6 of Henry Mayhew's Survey of Labour and The Poor) so Charlie kindly supplied the 50p required. Thank you Charlie, I am doubly indebted to you!



(Meeting this poet, and hearing his poem on the subject of grief, was especially significant for me since we were only a short distance from where I met Chaiselongue and her partner just weeks before she died in the summer.)"

Stranger by: Ceridwen